Poetry

I too dislike it the mystified truisms the dusty puzzle-​prunes the theatrical exaggerations: “the brutal crescendo of woodworms”–

yet I think of O’Hara’s delight in the endless pleasures of quotidian life and Duhamel throwing a dozen balls in the air and juggling them all Frank said only a few poems are as good as the movies but that was a long time ago before a lot of bad movies before background music before there was almost no silence and ”the private life” is an insult to others.

Poetry is the most private art: Li-​Young remembering his father combing his mother’s hair, Stern and Gilbert with their mouths open walking down a street in Paris, Judith writing the mysteries of Level Green and her father’s radioactive chambers.

Catullus registering his private ecstasies and fears while the machine of the state ground on. Kinnell saying “go so deep into yourself you speak for everyone.”

Pittsburgh Quarterly is now accepting submissions for its online poetry feature. PQ Poem is seeking poetry from local, national and international poets that highlight a strong voice and good use of imagery, among other criteria. To have your work featured, send up to three previously unpublished poems in Word or PDF format as well as a brief bio to

Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but if work is accepted elsewhere, please alert us.

Ed Ochester’s latest book of poems, “Sugar Run Road” (Autumn House Press) was released in 2015. He is the editor of the Pitt Poetry Series at the University of Pittsburgh Press, and edited American Poetry Now (Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, 2007). He is also the general editor for the Drue Heinz Literature Prize for short fiction at the press. Educated at Cornell, Harvard, and the University of Wisconsin, Ochester has taught at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and was for twenty years the director of the writing program at the University of Pittsburgh. He was twice elected president of AWP. He lives, as he says, “in the sticks” outside Pittsburgh.

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